Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle front structure in which a front side frame is provided in a front side portion of a vehicle body, and the front side frame is formed into a closed section by joining an inner panel and an outer panel.
Description of the Related Art
There are known some vehicle front structures in which a fragile portion is formed in each front side frame, and a branch gusset is provided to tilt from the fragile portion outward to the front side of the vehicle body. According to this vehicle front structure, at the time of a small overlap collision, an impact load is input to the branch gusset, and the input impact load acts on the fragile portion of the front side frame via the branch gusset.
By the impact load acting on the fragile portion, the fragile portion is bent into a V shape inward in the vehicle width direction. When the fragile portion is bent, the front side frame deforms, and the impact load is absorbed (see, for example, Japanese Patent No. 5357953).
In the vehicle front structure of Japanese Patent No. 5357953, however, the impact load transmitted to the fragile portion is hardly transmitted to the rear portion of the front side frame. It is therefore difficult to sufficiently deform the rear portion of the front side frame by the impact load. For this reason, it is difficult to increase the absorption amount of impact energy that is input when an impact load is input by a small overlap collision, and there remains room for improvement from this viewpoint.